SUNNYVALE, Calif., -January 5, 2004- Interwoven, Inc. (Nasdaq: IWOV), the world's next-generation enterprise content management (ECM) company, today announced that leading healthcare insurer Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI) has turned to Interwoven to reduce costs and achieve its goal of becoming a health and wellness organization. Interwoven's products are empowering BCBSRI employees enterprise-wide to make timely, relevant healthcare information available to over 650,000 members.

In 2002, BCBSRI processed more than 2.5 million Medicare claims, answered more than one million telephone calls, and responded to more than 9,000 written health-related inquiries. BCBSRI recognized that by helping its membership stay healthy, it could reduce the costs associated with these healthcare claims. To provide preventative care assistance, the company needed a way to efficiently disseminate trusted health and wellness information, including information on diseases, conditions, self-care, life stages, and personal health assessment. So they turned to Interwoven.

"Interwoven provides us with a cost-effective means to offer timely, relevant and easily searchable information to our members," said David O. Zink, senior vice president and CIO of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island. "We look forward to further leveraging this next-generation ECM platform both within our organization as well as to enable better sharing with other members of the BCBS network."

Ease-of-Use was Key to Making it Work

The most important feature to BCBSRI was Interwoven's ease-of-use. This was critical in ensuring that business users would use the software to frequently update both the Internet and intranet sites. After evaluating several options, BCBSRI believed that Interwoven was the best-integrated content management platform. Additionally, only Interwoven MetaTagger intelligence server software provided the integrated, next-generation content intelligence that the initiative required.

The first implementation phase, completed in August, involved adding sections on "health & lifestyle," "careers," and "public relations" on the public site, www.bcbsri.com. The recently completed second phase converted additional high-profile portions of the site to Interwoven TeamSite content server software for uniform content contribution, and at the same time, implementing Interwoven MetaTagger for enhanced search and personalization. The next phase, scheduled for completion in early 2004, will convert the corporate intranet to the Interwoven platform.

"Already we have seen an increased sense of ownership and responsibility by business owners in BCBSRI.com," said Doug Fonseca, assistant vice president, e-Commerce at BCBSRI. "This in turn has meant that our members are learning that they can rely on our site for more than just basic program updates but for a broader base of accurate health and wellness information."

"The investment in our new Interwoven-based sites is helping us transition from reactive care to preventative care, and in the long run this means a healthier member base and affordable healthcare," added Fonseca. "We have more confidence in the quality of our online information with Interwoven in place."

Better Search, Retrieval and Personalization

Interwoven MetaTagger allows content to be consistently and automatically tagged when business users create content, and for BCBSRI members, it means that site content is already easier to search. Because the process is automatic, all content is tagged with consistent information, making BCBSRI's plans for personalization even easier. Instead of getting hundreds of "hits" from a search on "high blood pressure," for example, the searching member will get a more limited set of appropriate and current information. Information on the site is kept current because part of the tagging process involves the retirement of outdated content as well.

Moving Towards Content Networks

As part of its future direction, BCBSRI is working closely with Interwoven to extend its ECM implementation into a content network. Leading analysts see Interwoven's recently announced vision of Content Networks as an evolution of ECM -- extending how and who manages content and applications within and beyond an enterprise. By participating in Interwoven's Customer Advisory Board, Blue Cross Blue & Shield of Rhode Island has played a unique role in influencing Interwoven's product direction, including the current Interwoven 6 platform and Interwoven's Content Networks vision.

In order to prepare for Content Networks, BCBSRI will continue to roll out content contribution to a greater number of people in its organization. Additionally, the company plans to implement a service-oriented architecture to extract further value from the Interwoven implementation and respond more quickly to members' need for up-to-date information. As the only content management provider to incorporate a service-oriented architecture (SOA) into its platform, Interwoven is uniquely positioned to make this vision a reality.